Asian businesses face export control, sanction compliance headaches

Author: Karry Lai | Published: 11 Jun 2018

Asian businesses, especially Chinese companies, are facing
increasing pressure as the US increasingly resorts to export
control and sanction regulations as a foreign policy tool.

The issue was recently amplified by the ZTE case which has
been heavily criticised by market participants globally. Due to
breaching terms of an existing sanctions settlement with the
US, ZTE was initially banned from purchasing components central
to its business from US partners for seven years. The ban will
be lifted once ZTE pays the $1 billion fine and $400 million
escrow in a US-approved bank.

According to panellists at the recent Asialaw In-House
Counsel Summit in Hong Kong, what Asian corporates are finding
most challenging is tracking channel partners with little to no
resources on export controls and the technical difficulty of
knowing the percentage of US content across complex product
lifecycles when there are large volumes of products.